​Venezuela’s Maduro left alone to deal with protests

Mauricio Savarese has been a journalist since 2003, and holds an MA in Interactive Journalism from the City University London. A former reporter for Reuters, Yahoo! and Brazil news websites UOL and Globo.com, he blogs on Latin American affairs. He has covered two Olympic Games, presidential elections in Brazil and abroad, a papal conclave and general news stories. He spent three years as a correspondent, half of this time in Brasilia on political stories and the other half in London. He has contributed to RT since the June protests in Brazil, both in English and Spanish. He is also a partner in The Conteudo, a web content agency in Sao Paulo, and a freelance journalist specializing in politics and sport.

Days and days of protests. Some are dead. Many others are in
jail. Spontaneous street demonstrations are forbidden. Public
services shut down. Loads of threats on the media. Opposition
politicians under siege. Suspicions of a coup underway. And
President Nicolas Maduro, who took office less than a year ago,
promising not to step down.

South America’s leftist haven is in shambles – thanks in part to
food shortages and inflation of 56 percent last year. But Latin
American leaders outside Caracas have mostly kept quiet as
neighboring Venezuela gazes into the abyss. They are silent in a
way that they probably wouldn’t have been if the man in the
Miraflores Palace were Hugo Chavez (1954-2013).

Most of the regional leaders met last year at a regional summit
of UNASUR (Union of South American Nations) to defend Maduro’s
controversial election. Diplomatic officials in Brasilia, Buenos
Aires, or even in rival and conservative Bogota, said it was
important for Venezuela to have some political stability after
Chavez passed away. Now it is a different game.

After days of quietude, UNASUR published a simple statement to
criticize “the attempt to destabilize the democratic
order” in Venezuela. The three powerful women of South
America, Brazil’s Dilma Rousseff, Argentina’s Cristina Kirchner
and Chile’s Michelle Bachelet, said nothing. Bolivia’s Evo
Morales, a traditional ally, was a clear exception to the
silence.

The most important players in the region have problems of their
own to solve. That’s why a meeting on Venezuela isn’t in the
plans so far. Argentina is itself in a big problem with inflation
and financial markets get jumpy by whatever happens in Buenos
Aires. Brazil has its sluggish growth rates and social unrest in
the run up to the FIFA World Cup, in June this year.

For the poorest Latin American and Caribbean countries, cheap
Venezuelan oil has been a good reason to keep their mouths shut.
That situation doesn’t persist exclusively in Cuba, unlike most
allies think. Instability in the ‘region’s Saudi Arabia’
would pressure inflation in smaller nations – and that is the
same reason why Maduro has dealt with the uprising of students.

Even the defeated opposition candidate Henrique Capriles noticed
Maduro’s isolation in the region and had to come out to reject a
coup against his rival. The conservative politician would much
rather wait for the incumbent to lose ground in the next five
years so he can build a proper base to win the next presidential
elections and govern.

Silence in the region isn’t exactly support for Maduro, but it
allows him to really go after radical opposition members, like
Leopoldo Lopez. The leader of a group called Popular Will hasn’t
been seen in public since the government issued an arrest warrant
against him. The accusation against Lopez isn’t very clear, but
regional powers didn’t come out in his defense.

When Chavez was around, he’d rally the region and, by his own
standards, force other leaders to embrace his decisions. If they
disagreed with the Venezuelan, at least they would say their
nation is sovereign and has its own political history to make
things happen the way they do. Maduro, otherwise, seems to enjoy
his loneliness. Perhaps not for too long.

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.